dancing with the mother-in-law
by Laura x Tennant
Summary: Tentoo/Rose; set at their wedding reception. Follows on from 'the briefly perilous situation that is second thoughts' and 'the exchange'.


"So, how come I wasn't invited to your stag night?" Owen asked, with narrowed eyes, as he plonked down in the seat next to the Doctor.

The Doctor blinked at him. "I didn't have a stag night."

He gasped. "You - you have to have a stag night. Why didn't you have a stag night?"

"Didn't want one," the Doctor shrugged.

"Did Rose have a hen night?"

"Yes."

"Then you should've got the chance to have a bit of fun, too!" he said petulantly.

"They just…went to the pub."

He chuckled darkly. "Yeah. Sure. Just the pub."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, mate. You poor bloke. Got no idea, have ya?"

"Rose…" the Doctor said slowly, as he intercepted her dance with one of their colleagues and swept her into a vague waltz. "Did you have a man take his clothes off in front of you at your hen night?"

Rose laughed. "No."

"Are you sure? Because Owen informs me that a stripper at 'hen' and 'stag' events is par of the course."

"For some people, I s'pose, yeah. And, all right, so the barman at one of the pubs we went to got a little frisky with Sandra and lost his shirt somewhere along the way. But that's as far as the nudity went that night, sadly."

"'Til you got home," he pointed out, slipping his hands down her back slowly.

She smirked. "'Til I got home," she agreed.

"Still, you don't feel like you've missed out, do you?" he checked.

"Why?" she asked suspiciously. "Do you?"

"No, no," he laughed, and squeezed her bum, drawing her closer to him. "I'm content with the stripping that you and I do together, really."

"Good," she smiled, pressing a quick kiss to his jaw. "Me too."

"You know, I'm really warming up to this wedding lark," he remarked, as he twirled Rose around on the dancefloor.

Rose smiled. "Me too. It wasn't nearly so terrifying as I thought it'd be. Or as boring. Do you wanna stay a bit longer, then?"

He brought her back into his embrace, holding her close as the music transitioned into a slower song. "I do," he realised, sounding surprised. "What about you, though?"

"Well, to be honest all I can really think about is you ravishing me, but yeah, I s'pose we can stay for a while," she smirked, tongue touching the corner of her mouth.

The Doctor made a low sound in his throat and held her tighter. "Five minutes," he suggested. "Five more minutes and then we'll sneak out and I'll - " Someone tapped him on the shoulder, interrupting him. He turned his head to see a very tipsy Jackie grinning at him.

"May I cut in?" she said, slurring her words only slightly.

He heaved a sigh and transferred Rose's hand to Jackie's. "Sure."

Rose giggled. "Doctor, I think she wants to dance with you."

The Doctor's eyes promptly widened and his hand moved to his ear, tugging on it as he blustered to find an excuse.

Jackie grabbed onto his jacket lapel. "You're not even thinking about rejecting me, are you? You can't not dance with your mother-in-law at your wedding. It's illegal."

"Pretty sure it isn't illegal, Jackie."

"Do you wanna find out?" she asked, in a challenging voice, and there was something so subtly terrifying to him about this women, still, even after all this time, despite the fact he'd cultivated quite a reasonable almost-friendship with her recently, that he could see his resolve weakening, could see himself agreeing to the dance within the next eight to twelve seconds.

"Dance with Mum," Rose requested, pressing a kiss to his cheek. "And I'll make it worth your while."

Make that three seconds. "Okay," he acquiesced. But before Rose moved too far away, he said to her, "Although I'm pretty sure you were gonna do that anyway. Also, Rose? Come rescue me after the next song, would you?"

"Of course," she rejoined, with a quick, mysterious smile that told him she would indeed rescue him, so long as she didn't accidentally-on-purpose get distracted first.

"Bloody hell," he muttered to himself, as he steered Jackie away from a dancing couple she was almost stumbling into. "The things I do for your daughter."

"Thank you," Jackie said, unexpectedly and earnestly.

He frowned, waved it off. "Oh, it's not a big deal, it's just a dance, Jackie - "

"Not for this, you plonker," she laughed, swatting his arm. "For this." She gestured around them. "Thank you for doing this for Rose. Well. For me." Jackie sighed. "Rose got the jitters this morning, didn't she?"

"Mmm."

"Did she actually want to go through with this? Did you? Or were you both just humouring me 'cos I kept pestering you?"

"Jackie," he said seriously, speaking so quietly that she had to strain her hearing to make sense of his words over the sound of the music. "Maybe we wouldn't have got around to doing this if you hadn't nagged - er, suggested it," he quickly amended, "But. Well, the truth is, I've always, in the back of my mind, in the bit I used to have to lock away when I was fully Time Lord, I've always yearned for a bit of this. Just a little bit of normality, humanity - domesticity, even. When you live a life like I lived for nine hundred years…I could never have this. Never. Not until we came here. Not until Rose."

"Rose told me you were married before," Jackie said softly.

"Yes. But it wasn't - it wasn't like this, it wasn't marriage like you conceive of it." He glanced around the room, observing all their drunk friends dancing madly, laughing and kissing and clinking glasses and eating that delicious cake. (He really was going to have to pop over and nab the rest of that cake before it was entirely consumed by people with inferior tastebuds, those undeserving of tasting its deliciousness.) "It certainly wasn't a thing like this, that wedding," he continued. And it wasn't. All formal and arranged and - well, the memories were a bit foggy, now, to tell the truth.

"But Doctor - "

"So yes, maybe we did this a little bit for you," he ploughed on, oblivious to her attempted reply, "And maybe Rose got nervous about it at the last minute. But I - I love your daughter. And there's something - I dunno, maybe it's because I'm a little bit human now, or maybe it's just Rose, but there's something about seeing her in that wedding dress, something about seeing that ring on her finger…" He shivered, a little. Then he shrugged. "I can't explain it. But it makes me very, very happy. So…thank _you._"

"That…is the most beautiful thing I've ever heard," said Jackie, her eyes looking suspiciously moist.

The Doctor smiled. "Oh, I dunno, I bet Pete is quite the poet."

Jackie snorted. "Not in this universe or any other, and thanks to you I am quite the authority on that," she confided. The Doctor laughed.


End file.
